The Trail Went Cold

March 14, 1998. Roger Mills County, Oklahoma. 39-year old Leonard Dirickson prepares breakfast for his son, Jared, before a man driving a pick-up truck shows up at their ranch. After Leonard goes outside and speaks to the driver, he tells Jared that the man is interested in looking at one of his stud horses and he will accompany him to the locations where they are being kept. After Leonard climbs...

October 25, 1978. Las Vegas, Nevada. Six-year old Cary Sayegh disappears from his schoolyard during lunchtime recess and a student reports seeing Cary being forced into a vehicle by a man. Hours later, the Sayegh family receives a phone call from a kidnapper demanding a sizable ransom for Cary’s safe return, but the caller never makes contact with them again. A man named Jerry Burgess draws suspic...

July 9, 1970. Lansing, Michigan. 16-year old Laurie Murninghan, the daughter of the city’s former mayor, is abducted from her workplace by a black male during a robbery gone wrong. Eleven days later, Laurie’s decomposed body is discovered in a remote swampy pond and her cause of death is determined to be manual strangulation. Since Laurie’s employer witnessed the abduction, she picks out a promisi...

August 12, 1989. Halifax, Nova Scotia. After her shift ends 40 minutes earlier than scheduled, 19-year old Kimberly McAndrew clocks out and leaves her workplace before she vanishes without a trace. Over the years, investigators check out a number of different leads and even consult with a so-called “psychic detective”, but fail to find any conclusive answers about what happened to Kim. Even though...

February 27, 1995. Springfield, Missouri. The bodies of 35-year old Cheryl Feeney and her two children – six-year old Tyler and 19-month old Jennifer – are all discovered inside their separate bedrooms at their residence. Cheryl and Tyler have been bludgeoned to death while Jennifer was strangled and the house is completely ransacked. Even though the family’s 35-year old patriarch, Jon Feeney, was...

August 22, 1992. Brandon, Mississippi. While driving his girlfriend home, 18-year old Andre Jones is stopped at a police sobriety checkpoint and is arrested on a number of charges after his pick-up truck is determined to be stolen. Andre is transferred to the Simpson County Jail, but over 19 hours after his arrival, he is found hanging by one of his own shoelaces in a holding cell’s shower stall a...

May 21, 1983. Yukon, Canada. The remains of a male homicide victim are discovered in a shallow grave in a remote area and since he cannot be identified, he becomes known as the “Dawson City John Doe”. Thirty-eight years later, DNA testing identifies the victim as 46-year old Theodore Kampf, who had left his home in New Jersey in 1981 to make a cross-country road trip to Canada before he disappeare...

April 15, 2005. Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. After taking the day off work and leaving on a road trip, 59-year old Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar fails to return home and is reported missing. The following day, Ray’s abandoned car is discovered 60 miles away in the town of Lewisburg, parked across the street from an antiques mall. Over the course of the next several months, Ray’s county-i...

February 1, 1999. DeSoto County, Mississippi. While living in a farmhouse with her two children and her boyfriend, 27-year old Katherine Lowery vanishes without explanation. Months later, Katherine’s boyfriend takes the children and abruptly moves to Wyoming, but he winds up being arrested when Katherine’s daughter accuses him of sexual abuse. It turns out the boyfriend has been living under an al...

June 11, 1955. Salt Lake City, Utah. 22-year old Jocelyn Hickenlooper, who suffers from developmental disabilities and scoliosis, vanishes without explanation from her home. Over two weeks later, Jocelyn’s decomposed body is discovered in a shallow grave located near Parley’s Canyon. After a two-year investigation, a suspect named Bernt Murphy, who also has developmental disabilities, confesses to...

June 11, 1962. San Francisco, California. 35-year old Frank Morris, 32-year old John Anglin and his 31-year old brother, Clarence Anglin, attempt an elaborate escape from the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary on Alcatraz Island. After sneaking out of their cells during the night, the three convicts enter the water in order to cross San Francisco Bay on a homemade inflatable raft, but an extensive manh...

June 11, 1962. San Francisco, California. 35-year old Frank Morris, 32-year old John Anglin and his 31-year old brother, Clarence Anglin, attempt an elaborate escape from the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary on Alcatraz Island. After sneaking out of their cells during the night, the three convicts enter the water in order to cross San Francisco Bay on a homemade inflatable raft, but an extensive manh...

February 14, 1985. Colorado Springs, Colorado. The bodies of 37-year old Cassandra Rundle and her two children, 12-year old Detrick Sturm and 10-year old Melanie Sturm, are discovered inside their respective bedrooms at their residence. The two females were sexually assaulted and beaten and all three victims have been strangled to death. Since Cassandra had placed some personal ads in a local news...

December 31, 2010. Wilmington, Delaware. The body of 66-year old Jack Wheeler is discovered in a trash heap at the Cherry Island Landfill and his cause of death is determined to be blunt force trauma. Days earlier, Jack had left his residence in New York City to travel to Delaware and numerous eyewitnesses would report seeing Jack at numerous locations, displaying erratic behaviour which may have...

December 26, 1983. Austin, Texas. After leaving her workplace, 39-year old Gracie Nash vanishes without a trace and her abandoned car is soon discovered with a large amount of blood inside. Just over one month later, Gracie’s brother, 43-year old John Davis Jr., is fatally shot outside his residence. Suspicion falls upon a woman named Naomi Easley, who had launched a campaign of harassment and vio...

June 23, 1997. San Francisco, California. After completing her shift at a coffee shop at the Crocker Galleria, 18-year old Kristen Modafferi vanishes without a trace. Even though co-workers report seeing Kristen with a blonde woman at the mall, this woman is never identified, and a police bloodhound tracks Kristen’s scent to the edge of the Pacific Ocean at Lands End over six miles away. Weeks lat...

August 19, 1992. Menasha, Wisconsin. After leaving her workplace, 20-year old Laurie Depies drives to her boyfriend’s apartment complex and parks her car before she vanishes without a trace. Even though witnesses heard her vehicle pull into the lot, they do not report hearing or seeing anything unusual and the only evidence is a cup of soda left on top of the car’s roof. Eighteen years later, a co...

July 4, 1988. San Angelo, Texas. 16-year old Shane Stewart and his 18-year old girlfriend, Sally McNelly, go out to watch a fireworks show together, but never return home and Shane’s abandoned car is found in a park the following morning. Four months later, the couple’s skeletal remains are discovered in a remote pasture and they have both been murdered by shotgun blasts to the head. For years, ru...

Since “The Trail Went Cold” originally launched in February 2016, we have featured over 300 cold cases and unsolved mysteries on the podcast and a decent amount of them have either wound up being solved or had significant developments take place. Two years ago, we released a special “update” episode which detailed a lot of these developments, but there have since been many more new updates to shar...

Christmas Eve 1924. Babbs Switch, Oklahoma. A fire breaks out at a Christmas party taking place at a schoolhouse and claims the lives of 36 people. The remains of one of the presumed victims, three-year old Mary Elizabeth Edens, cannot be found and since Mary’s aunt recalls handing the child to an unknown person, her family believes Mary might have been abducted. Over 32 years later, evidence is f...

December 15, 2000. Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The former boss of 53-year old Colleen Wood calls her on her cell phone to invite her to an upcoming Christmas party, but even though Colleen says she will attend, she never shows up and is not heard from again. At the time, Colleen and her boyfriend, John Paul, were planning to leave on a five-year sailing trip around the world on John’s boat, but when...

December 5, 1998. Klamath County, Oregon. Eight-year old Derrick Engebretson travels to Winema National Forest with his father and grandfather in order to get a Christmas tree, but winds up becoming separated from them. An extensive search effort fails to find Derrick, though an eyewitness reports having seen a boy matching Derrick’s description struggling with an unidentified man near the road. Y...

May 14, 1991. Vidor, Texas. 34-year old Kathy Page is found dead inside her car after an apparent crash into a drainage ditch just over 100 yards from her residence. While the scene resembles an accident, the evidence shows that Kathy was actually strangled to death before the crash was staged. Since Kathy’s marriage to her estranged husband, Steve Page, was falling apart and there were a number o...

September 30, 1987. Northumberland County, Virginia. The body of 45-year old Kay Hall is discovered on a back road underneath her pick-up truck. She has been run over and her husband, Bob Hall, immediately becomes the prime suspect. Even though Bob stood to collect on an inheritance Kay had just received and there are issues with his alibi, there is some question about whether he would have been a...

October 8, 2009. Latimer County, Oklahoma. 44-year old Bobby Jamison, his 40-year old wife, Sherilynn Jamison, and their six-year old daughter, Madyson Jamison, leave their home to go look at a plot of land in a remote mountainous area, but never return. Eight days later, their abandoned pick-up truck is discovered on a dirt road located thirty miles from their residence, but even though the famil...